


Another Elevator Story

by AngieInStL



Category: The Sentinel
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-21
Updated: 2011-12-21
Packaged: 2017-10-27 16:46:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,851
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/297945
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AngieInStL/pseuds/AngieInStL
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Just what the title says ... can you bear another elevator story?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Another Elevator Story

 

 

 

 

 

 

Another Elevator Story

 

Jim flipped the page in the report he was reading and found a note taped to the back cover that said the file had been split because of the volume of statements and listed the second file number.  Sighing in frustration, he pinched the bridge of his nose.  He was on light duty since falling while chasing a petty little thief two days ago.  His ankle was fine but the doctor couldn’t get him in until tomorrow to lift the restriction.

 

“Sandburg, would you mind running down to records and getting the rest of this case file for me?” he asked.

 

“Oh, come on, man!  I just came back from records!” Blair protested, gesturing to the stack of folders he had set on the corner of Rafe’s desk.  “If I go down there again, Diana’s gonna start thinking I have a thing for her or something!”

 

“I thought you were supposed to be observing me, Chief, not the rest of the inmates in this funny farm,” Jim replied acidly.  Seeing the quick flash of guilt scroll across his roommate’s expressive face, Ellison’s mood softened.  “I’ll tell you what, you do this for me and I’ll spring for supper this evening, any place you want to go.”

 

“Oh, great!  There’s this new vegetarian place over on Sixth-” Blair replied quickly.

 

“Except the vegetarian place,” Jim amended.  “Come on, you know I have to have something I can really sink my teeth into and sprouts just doesn’t do it for me.”

 

“Alright, alright, how about the Italian place on Broadway?” Blair countered, holding his hands up in front of him to end the tirade about the differences in their eating habits.  “I’ll be right back.”

 

As Blair left Major Crimes, Jim closed the file and set it aside, shooting a glare at Rafe, who snickered and ducked behind his monitor.

 

“You can get your own files, you know?” Jim said.

 

***

 

Darting across the hall, Blair pushed the button to call the elevator.  When the doors opened a few seconds later, two of the vice detectives stepped out.  In sharp contrast to when he first started hanging out with Jim, both of them nodded to Blair as they passed him.  He rocked up on his toes, happy that he was finally being accepted, and stepped into the elevator.

 

The car stopped on the fifth floor and a pretty blonde got on.  She gave him a brief glance and quickly looked away.  Noticing her department ID, Blair leaned against the wall and tried to strike up a conversation with her.

 

***

 

Back in Major Crimes, Jim cocked his head, his hands hovering over the keyboard where he was typing up a new narrative for the case he was working on.  Henri noticed and nudged Rafe, who was standing next to him, both of them chatting with Rhonda about the church bazaar she was planning to work that weekend.

 

“Jim?” Henri asked, “What is it?”  He had no sooner gotten the words out of his mouth than they all heard the explosion somewhere above them.  Immediately, sirens rang out.

 

Simon rose from his chair, grabbing his jacket as he moved toward the door leading to the bullpen.  He saw that everyone was securing their desks and that the hall was crowded with people trying to get to the stairs.

 

“Go on!  Get out of here!” Banks called, shooing a couple of uniforms ahead of him.

 

***

 

The pretty lady turned out to be Bonnie Henderson … Mrs. Bonnie Henderson.  Blair’s smile dimmed only slightly as he introduced himself.

 

“My name’s Blair Sandburg.  I work with Jim Ellison in Major Crimes.  Well, not actually work with him, I’m just here to observe him for my dissertation.  I’m a student at Rainier University,” he explained.

 

“My sister went there,” Bonnie replied, relaxing her slightly tense posture.  “She was studying-”

 

Whatever she was about to say was lost in the sound of an explosion somewhere above them.  Before either of them could even realize what had happened, the elevator began to drop.

 

“Get down!” Blair shouted, lunging across the car to push the woman off her feet.  Their descent was fast and the stop at the bottom of the shaft jarring.  The momentum caused the young grad student to roll away from Bonnie, who cried out in pain.  Suddenly, the top of the elevator car was ruptured by falling debris.  Yards of severed cable fell, spreading out like an oversized pile of spaghetti.  Chunks of concrete punched through the opening, bringing down the metal beams that made up the top of the car.  Something struck his head and Blair lost consciousness.

 

***

 

Going down the steps, it was eerily quiet, with only an occasional murmur of reassurance between the people fleeing the building.  The scream of the alarms was oddly muted in the stairwell.  Jim and Simon were at the back of the group from the seventh floor, having made sure that the floor was clear before they left it.  Half a flight down, Rafe caught Rhonda as she slipped on the steps.

 

“Where’s Sandburg?” Simon asked, not seeing the dark, curly head in front of them.

 

“He was on his way down to records,” Jim replied tersely.  He dared not stretch out his senses to look for his guide.

 

They came out on the first floor and surged toward the exit.  The lobby was filled with a kaleidoscope of color from the police cars and fire truck in the street outside.  They were swept along with the crowd until they reached the sidewalk on the opposite side of the street where there was bedlam.  Everyone was turning back to look up at the building, stumbling and jostling each other as they jockeyed for a position so they could see.  People were calling out for their friends and coworkers, reminding Jim that he had not seen Blair.  He knew that his guide would be looking for him, probably having left with the people from the file rooms in the basement.  He spotted Sergeant Luftly from Records and began to make his way through the crowd.  When he finally got to the man, Jim grabbed his arm and turned him away from the building.

 

“Have you seen Blair?  He was getting a file for me,” Jim asked.

 

“I didn’t see him; I was too busy getting my people out.  Do we know what happened?”

 

Jim ignored the question, turning and scouring the moving sea of bodies.  He focused his sight on the farthest edges of the crowd, dismissing the curious onlookers who were pouring out of adjacent buildings.  He felt anxiety rising in his gut as, one by one, he studied and discarded the faces as not being the one he sought.  Someone bumped into him hard enough that he toppled out of the mini-zone he had fallen into.  His ears immediately picked up what was being said over the fire department radios; the elevator shaft had collapsed and it was possible that there were people trapped inside.  A surge of adrenaline washed over him and Ellison began powering his way back toward the building.  Somehow, he just knew that Blair was in that elevator.

 

***

 

Dust filled the air and made him cough, bringing pain and rousing Blair toward consciousness.  He tried to move and found that his legs were pinned by something.  A warm, itchy-sticky feeling crept along his cheek and nose, causing him to reach up and touch his face.  He recognized the feel of blood and raised his fingers to his forehead, near his hairline.  A certain spot he touched stung and he hissed in pain.

 

A low moan drew his attention and Blair reached out blindly in the dark, dust-choked space around him until he touched something soft and warm.

 

“Oh God it hurts,” Bonnie moaned, “It hurts.”

 

“Try not to move,” Blair cautioned her.  “Just stay still.”

 

“I can’t feel my leg,” she cried out.

 

Groping in the dark, Blair found his handkerchief.  Jim had teased him about the bandana-handkerchief because it was so large and faded from repeated trips through the washer but it was perfect for what he needed at the moment.  Grasping it by diagonal corners, he used his teeth to hold one corner while he clumsily folded it, not wanting to put it down and get it dirty.  When he had it rolled the way he wanted, he gently placed it against his forehead.  It stung when the material came into contact with the open wound but he quickly tied it behind his head, his eyes tearing when he got a hunk of hair caught in the knot.  Using the cuff of his long-sleeved shirt, he wiped the blood off of his face. 

 

Now that his most obvious injury was tended to, he took a moment to assess the rest of his body.  His left arm ached slightly and he thought he remembered hitting the handrail with it as he fell.  Something heavy lay across his shins but he could still wiggle his toes and move his feet so that wasn’t too bad.  When he stretched out his hands, he touched what felt like the ceiling panels from the roof of the car and beyond that, he felt metal beams and rocks.  Some of the rocks shifted at his touch, tumbling down to thump mutely against the carpeted floor next to his thigh.  He carefully mapped out the space around him, realizing that there was precious little of it.

 

“It hurts,” Bonnie whimpered again.

 

“Don’t move.  I know it hurts but try to keep still,” Blair urged gently.  He felt her shoulder and worked his way down until he caught hold of her hand.  “They’ll get us out of here as quickly as they can.”

 

***

 

Finally free of the crowd, Jim strode quickly toward the lobby entrance.  In the pandemonium, no one noticed him until he actually reached the doors.

 

“Hey, you can’t go back in there!” a fireman called out, jogging over, his equipment jingling and jiggling around him as he moved.  He caught hold of Jim’s arm and stopped him, suddenly finding himself on the wrong end of an icy, blue-eyed glare.

 

“My partner is still in there!” Jim growled, shaking off the restraining hand.

 

“I understand that but you still can’t go back in there!” the fireman countered.  “We’ve got to make sure the building is structurally safe before we go back in looking for trapped victims.”

 

“He’s in the elevator.  He was going down to Records,” Jim explained.  He looked through the heavy glass doors and saw four men prying the elevator doors open.  Through the small gap they had made, he could see the chunks of cement and steel beams.  “Oh no,” he murmured softly, “Oh, Chief.”

 

***

 

As his eyes adjusted to the darkness, Blair realized that he could see, barely.  His view of the world was limited to inky black and shades of very dark gray.  He looked down and saw the pale hand clenching his wrist.  He thought that he could move some of the debris and maybe get a look at whatever was pinning Bonnie’s leg.  He let go of her hand but she clung to him, gasping in fear when he tried to pull away.

 

“I’m just going to see if I can move some of this stuff off of you,” he offered.  He didn’t pull his hand away until she let go several moments later.

 

“We’re buried,” she whined.

 

“They’ll get us out,” he assured her firmly.  “We just have to hang on.”

 

Reaching out carefully, Blair felt around until he was sure he could move the collapsed ceiling panel without making anything fall.  He lifted it and felt a twinge in his left forearm.  With so little room to maneuver, he ended up laying the panel across his lap.  Squinting into the dark, he thought he could just make out Bonnie’s head.  She was lying on her back.  The ceiling of the elevator and part of the wall formed a sheltered space above her.

 

“Oh, wait!  I have a lighter,” Blair exclaimed softly.  He dug into his pocket until he found it and he pulled it out with triumphant flourish.  He ran his thumb over the wheel and was rewarded with a wick of flame.  After so many minutes in near-total darkness, the light was almost painfully bright.  What he saw made his stomach clench and his heart race.

 

It looked like the steel beams on top of the elevator had saved their lives.  Several large chunks of the elevator shaft wall, complete with extruded pieces of rebar, lay across the beams.  The stainless steel material the car was made from had bent and crumpled like aluminum foil.

 

“My kingdom for a candle,” Blair said as he released the button and let the flame die.  The top of the little Bic lighter was hot.

 

“I think I’m bleeding,” Bonnie said as she groped with her hands.

 

***

 

The fireman turned to see what the man was looking at.  They had cut the electricity to the building, so the lobby was only lit by emergency panels and the dim illumination provided by the heavily-overcast sky.  It was too dark for him to see much more than the reflective spots on the other firemen’s coats.  While he was staring into the building, Jim opened the door and went inside.

 

Jim reached out with his hearing and heard the softly murmured comment about a candle and he was instantly relieved that Blair was alive.  His relief was tempered by the pain-filled voice of the woman and he quickly moved toward the elevator.  The firemen glanced at him and one of them stepped away from the open doors to try to stop him from coming any closer.

 

“Sir, you can’t be in here!” he announced.

 

“My partner and a woman are trapped in the elevator,” Jim stated.

 

“We haven’t verified that anyone was in the car when it fell,” the fireman countered.

 

“Fell,” Jim repeated, instantly transported to another time and place when his guide and friend was trapped in an elevator while a madman blackmailed the owner of the building and dropped the car five floors with every missed deadline.

 

“Sir, you have to go back across the street.  We’re doing everything we can.  If your friend is trapped in the elevator, we’ll get him out.  Now you have to go,” the fireman said, urging Jim away from the open doors.

 

“Clear the building, we have another bomb threat,” a disembodied voice announced over the radio.  “Clear the building immediately.”

 

“Let’s go!” the fireman shouted as the other three began moving toward the exit.

 

“No!” Jim denied angrily.  “Blair is trapped down there!”

 

It took all four of them to force Ellison to move.  Once they had him off balance, they swept him along with them as they hurried back out into the street.  Jim fought them, swinging blindly and connecting with an oxygen tank and a safety helmet.  Once outside, he was pinned against the side of the fire truck.

 

“Jim!” Simon shouted, elbowing past the few people in his way when he saw the detective being forced from the building.  “Jim!” he called again.

 

***

 

After blowing on the lighter to cool it off, Blair lit it again.  He raised it and moved it to his left, trying to see if he could move anything else to give them some more room.

 

“Jim, I don’t know if you can hear me, but now would be a good time to make with the rescuing, man,” Blair mumbled.  He saw something that looked like the emergency, battery-powered lamp that was usually mounted in the corner of the elevator car.  He was dismayed to see that the case was shattered.  When he swung the light back toward Bonnie, he saw her hands … her blood-covered, trembling hands.  Immediately, the lighter slipped from his fingers and they were plunged into inky darkness again.

 

“Oh God!  I’m going to die!” Bonnie cried.

 

***

 

Jim stopped struggling, if only to get them to let him go, and heard Blair’s comment about rescue.  Seconds later, he heard the woman’s voice, laced with hysteria.  Right away, he heard Blair trying to calm her, assuring her that they would be rescued and that she would be alright, followed by her soft sobs.

 

Simon nodded for them to let Jim go and steered the detective down on one of the ledges in the side of the fire truck.  He recognized the expression, the slight tilt of the head, which meant that Jim was listening, probably to Blair.  He waited until Ellison’s eyes turned to him.

 

“What is it?  What did you hear?” he asked softly.

 

“Blair’s trapped with a woman and she’s hurt,” Jim replied.

 

“But Sandburg is okay?” Simon asked.

 

“He sounds alright.  I think he’s using a lighter.  I heard him saying that he would give half his kingdom for a candle.”

 

“He can’t be hurt too badly if he can still make wisecracks,” Simon offered.  “He’ll just have to hang in there until they can get him out.”

 

“They said someone called in another bomb threat,” Jim said.

 

“Damn,” Simon murmured.

 

***

 

Blair tried to soothe Bonnie, tried to calm her down, as she sobbed.  He shrugged out of his flannel shirt and wadded it up carefully so she could press it against the place where a piece of rebar had punched into her stomach.  He couldn’t reach the spot and he felt guilty about being relieved by that fact.  He laid his hand on her shoulder and offered her what little comfort he could give.

 

“So, tell me, what was your sister studying at Rainier?” Blair asked, trying to take her mind off of their situation.

 

There was a long pause and Blair thought that Bonnie had passed out.  At least, he hoped that she had just passed out.  His shoulders sagged and he let his head fall back against the wall behind him.

 

“She was majoring in English Literature and minored Art History,” Bonnie replied softly.  “My dad kept teasing her about it.”

 

“She must have had Professor Smithton.  He’s been teaching Art History since the dark ages,” Blair teased.  “His office is all dark and musty.”

 

“Yeah, she talked about that,” Bonnie replied softly.

 

After several minutes, Bonnie fell silent.  If not for being able to feel the rise and fall of her breathing, Blair would have thought she died.  He felt around for the lighter, almost desperate to confirm with his eyes what his sense of touch was telling him.  He didn’t think he could bear to be trapped with a dead body.

 

***

 

The bomb squad arrived with their dogs and was quickly dispatched into the building.  Apparently, the caller had said only that there was another bomb in the building, not where it was or when it would go off.

 

“Did the caller make any demands?” Simon asked of the fire chief.

 

“No demands, just announced that there was another explosive in the building,” the man replied tersely as he stared up at the windows.

 

Unnoticed, Jim slipped away from the crowd gathered in front of the building and made his way to the garage entrance around the corner.  Several uniforms were standing next to the police cars that blocked the street, talking amongst themselves as Ellison ducked past them.  The garage was pretty empty, since they had moved all of the squad cars out when the evacuation order came down.

 

Jim jogged over to the door that lead to the stairwell and slipped into the hall beyond.  It was dark, with only the emergency lamps to illuminate the area, as he made his way toward the elevator Blair was trapped in.  He pressed his hands against the doors and called out to his guide, “Sandburg!  Can you hear me?”

 

Blair’s head snapped up when he heard his name, “Jim?  Jim!  We need help in here, man!  Bonnie’s hurt bad!”

 

“We’re going to get you out.  Just stay calm,” Jim yelled back.

 

“What happened?  Where’s the rescue team?” Blair shouted.

 

“There was another bomb threat called in.  They’re searching the building right now,” Jim explained.  “As soon as they find it and defuse it, they’ll get you out of there.”

 

“There’s another bomb in the building?  You have to get out of here, then,” Blair shouted.  “You’re not even supposed to be in here, are you?”

 

“I needed to be here, Chief.  I can’t just stand out there knowing you’re trapped in here.  Are you alright?”

 

“I would much rather be out there with you,” Blair replied.  “It’s dark in here.”

 

Jim could hear the tinge of fear in that softly spoken statement.  He looked at the doors and then looked around.  An idea popped into his head and he leaned against the cool steel for a moment, “I’ll be right back, Chief.  You just hang in there.”

 

The garage was spookily quiet as Jim ran over to his truck and opened the driver’s side door.  He reached in behind the seat and found his tire iron.  He closed the door gently so as not to alert the uniforms at the exit and jogged back into the building.

 

“I’m going to try to get the doors open and maybe let some light in,” Jim yelled, jamming the end of the tire iron into the seam between the doors.  He pulled, grunting with the effort, and was rewarded with a half-inch space that, unfortunately, closed up again when he released the pressure.

 

***

 

Simon accepted the paper from Rhonda with all of the names of the people in Major Crimes who had been on duty in the building.  He saw from the neat row of check-marks that everyone had made it out except Sandburg.  He squeezed Rhonda’s shoulder when she looked toward the building.  A cold, fine mist had begun to fall and her blonde hair had droplets of moisture beading on it.

 

“You should go on home.  There isn’t anything you can do here,” Simon told her.

 

“I know, Captain, but I can’t leave without knowing that he’s alright,” she said.

 

A few moments later, Joel Taggert came over and draped his windbreaker around Rhonda’s shoulders, earning him a grateful smile.  The crowd had thinned, mostly because the police had pushed the barricades back and sent the curious people on their way.  The Red Cross had arrived and was handing out strong coffee and cups of soup to those who wouldn’t or couldn’t leave.  Around the corner, fire and rescue was amassing equipment, ready to go in as soon as they got the all clear.

 

***

 

In the darkness of the elevator car, Blair strained to hear anything over the thundering of his heart against his eardrums.  He had heard Jim and something scraping against the doors but there hadn’t been any relief from the unending darkness that was pressing in on him.

 

“Slow it down, Chief,” Jim urged.  He heard Blair’s breathing growing quick and shallow, a sure sign that his guide was close to a panic attack.  “I’m working on something out here,” he explained.

 

“I really wish you’d hurry,” Blair replied.

 

Jim cursed softly as the screwdriver slipped yet again.  He was trying to use it to keep the outer door open.  He intended to wedge his scissor jack into the opening if he could get it wide enough and use it to force the doors open.  He couldn’t believe that the hydraulics were still working with the power off!

 

A soft whimper drew Blair’s attention and he flicked the lighter again.  Bonnie blinked up at him and he saw that she looked pale.  He patted her shoulder and her eyes slid closed again.

 

“Hey Jim, she’s in a bad way in here,” Blair said as he let the lighter go dark.

 

Jim leaned against the doors and closed his eyes as he reached out with his hearing.  He could tell that the woman’s heart was straining and knew she didn’t have a lot of time left.  He wondered how far they had come on searching for the other explosive because he desperately needed some help.

 

“Just hang on, Sandburg,” Jim said.  “You just hang on in there.”

 

***

 

Two hours passed in agonizingly slow increments before the officers with the bomb sniffing dogs came out of the building.  They quietly conferred with the fire chief before heading back to where they had left their vehicles.

 

“Well?” Simon called out, fixing the other man with a hard, steady gaze.

 

“They didn’t find anything.  Send in the rescue teams,” the fire chief said.  Immediately, there was a flurry of activity.  Two teams went into the lobby and began working on getting the outer doors to the shaft open again while the others near the garage entrance began carrying in their gear.

 

***

 

Jim looked up when the door at the end of the hall opened.  He was relieved to see the heavy, bulky equipment they carried in with them.

 

“Sir, you shouldn’t be in here!” the first fireman announced.

 

“My partner is trapped in there with a woman who is badly injured,” Jim replied, brushing aside the rebuke.  He gave way, stepping back as they set down what looked like a giant can opener.  In just a minute, they had the outer doors open and one of them reached in between the inner and outer doors to cut the line to the hydraulics.  Another man reached down and shoved Jim’s scissor jack out of the way.

 

Relegated to watching, Jim reached for Blair’s heartbeat.  It was still too quick but he supposed that his guide was excited about the prospect of getting out of the elevator.  He also listened for the woman and sighed as her heart slowed and then stopped.

 

“You hear that, Bonnie?  They’re going to get us out of here,” Blair said, shivering in anticipation of being able to get up and move around.  His butt was asleep and his legs ached from being in one position for so long.  “Bonnie?” he called when she didn’t respond.  “No, no, no,” he mumbled as he reached out to press his fingertips against her neck.  He waited, straining to feel something.  He moved his fingers to another place and finally he grabbed her arm and pulled it toward him to feel for the pulse point in her wrist.  He was startled at how cold her hand was.

 

“Oh, Blair, I’m so sorry,” Jim whispered when he heard his roommate begin to cry softly.

 

The inner doors opened slowly and Jim hoped that they would be able to rescue Blair soon.  He knew why they were taking their time as rocks and other debris tumbled out of the gap they had created.  One of them stuck a flashlight in and surveyed the situation.

 

“Help!  Get me out of here!” Blair screamed.  He knew he was losing it.  Bonnie’s death shook him badly and he just wanted out.  He wanted to see the sky.  He beat his elbow against the wall of the elevator and screamed again, “Get me out of here!”

 

“He’s having a panic attack,” Jim announced.

 

“Can you talk him down?” the fireman asked.  “It’s going to take a while to stabilize this before we can get him out.”

 

“How long?” Jim asked in dismay.

 

“Could be a couple of hours or more.”

 

Blair’s panicked screams were punctuated by the sound of him beating on the wall behind him.  He tried to pull his legs out from under the beam and succeeded, pulling off one of his shoes in the process.  Bracing his foot against the beam, he strained until he had the other foot free, then he pushed against the beam, screaming in frustration and fear until he couldn’t catch his breath.  He could hear Jim, shouting at him that he needed to calm down but he just couldn’t.  They weren’t in here, trapped in a tomb-like space with a dead body!

 

“Sandburg!” Jim yelled.  He could hear his roommate hyperventilating and knew he was close to losing consciousness.  “Damn it, Blair, listen to me!”

 

Finally, Blair was too tired to struggle against the beam and too hoarse to keep screaming.  He drew his legs up and wrapped his arms around them, letting his forehead rest against his knees as he panted shallowly.

 

“Are you still with me, Chief?” Jim asked.  The firemen working around him nodded to encourage him to keep talking.

 

“It’s dark,” Blair whispered between breaths.

 

“Someone give me a light,” Jim demanded.  A flashlight was thrust into his hand and he reached through the opening with it.  “I’m going to toss this to you,” Jim explained.  He couldn’t see Blair but he knew that he was against the back wall of the elevator car and Ellison hoped that the jagged tear in the metal opened into the space where Blair was trapped.

 

Something hit the wall and dropped on the floor next to Blair’s hip.  He groped for it and found the button to turn it on.  Instantly, his tiny bubble of space was filled with light that he didn’t have to burn his thumb to have on.

 

Jim listened as Blair’s breathing slowed.  He couldn’t imagine what it was like for his friend and he was so proud of the way Blair had kept it together as long as he had.

 

“Thanks, Jim,” Blair rasped, “You don’t happen to have a Snickers in your bag of tricks, do you?”

 

“Not on me, Sandburg, but I’ll get you one if that’s what you want,” Jim answered.

 

Most of an hour later, Jim was pacing anxiously along the hallway.  They couldn’t open the elevator doors any wider without risking a fatal shift in the large chunks of the shaft wall.  They were trying to rig something from above so they could stabilize the debris.  During one of the few quiet moments, Blair whispered that he’d like to have a blanket and a bottle of water.  The paramedic on the rescue squad was concerned about letting him have anything in case he had internal injuries but Blair swore adamantly that he was just thirsty.  Rather than throwing the bottle as Jim had the flashlight, they fashioned something like a fishing rod and extended it into the elevator car, lowering it down until Blair could reach it.  Once he had the water bottle, they passed him a ‘Space Blanket.’

 

Contrary to what the rescuers thought, Blair wanted the blanket to cover Bonnie.  He felt that she deserved that much respect, at least.  Once she was covered, he was able to relax a little.

 

“What time is it, Jim?” Blair asked, knowing that the Sentinel would hear him, even if the other men in the hallway didn’t.

 

“It’s about 7:45,” Jim replied.  “Have you got a hot date or something?”

 

“No, nothing for tonight,” he whispered.  “Just thinking.”

 

“About what?” Jim asked, pressing closer to the gap in the doors.

 

“Will you do me a favor?” Blair asked, continuing without waiting for an answer, “Will you tell Naomi … will you tell her that I love her?”

 

The request was like an icy fist in his gut and Jim stiffened, “No!  You’ll tell her yourself!  What’s wrong with you?  We’re going to get you out of there!  You just have to hang on a little longer!”

 

“But you’ll tell her, won’t you?  If something happens to me?” Blair asked.  “It’ll be hard for her.  She’ll try to act like she’s alright but it’s a front.”

 

“You listen to me, Sandburg, you’re not going to die!  They’re working on getting you out right now!” Jim shouted, putting as much anger into his voice as he could manage.

 

“I hear you, man,” Blair whispered.  His head was throbbing something fierce and he really didn’t want to argue with Jim, to have that be the last thing his friend remembered about him.

 

Jim turned to the rescue team in frustration.  “You have to do something!  He’s giving up in there!” he demanded.

 

“We were just talking about it and we think the best way to get him out is to cut in with a blow torch.  We’ll come in from above and cut through the stainless steel of the elevator wall.  We’re just working on rigging a support to keep the weight off of the rubble.  We’ll pass in a fire-retardant blanket to shield him and the woman-”

 

“She’s dead,” Jim interrupted.

 

“What?  How do you know?” the paramedic asked.

 

Realizing that he had just put his foot in his mouth, Jim took a page from Blair’s book and he obfuscated.  “She died before you guys got down here,” he said.

 

“Alright, let’s see if we can get your partner out of there,” the young, blond fireman said.

 

After rigging a harness and support in the first floor elevator doorway, they carefully lowered the fireman and cutting equipment into the shaft.  The fireman forced a coat through the hole to Blair and after making sure he was well covered, he began to cut.

 

Jim joined the group in the lobby, pacing and straining to hear what he couldn’t see in the elevator shaft.  He looked over at the ambulance crew that was standing by to transport Blair to the hospital as soon as he was rescued.

 

The fireman stopped cutting long enough to stick a pry bar into the gap he had made in the steel.  He wanted to peel the metal back rather than pushing it into the hole since he didn’t know how much room the trapped man had.  If he had known how close he was, he probably wouldn’t have continued to cut.

 

Blair huddled beneath the coat the fireman stuffed through the hole.  He could hear the torch above his head.  He had turned off the flashlight and found himself wishing that he hadn’t.  It was all he could do to remain still.  His head throbbed viciously and he really wanted to go to sleep but he was afraid that he wouldn’t wake up, the way Bonnie had.  He began chanting softly to keep his mind off of what was happening around him.

 

Setting the torch aside, the fireman used the pry bar to bend the stainless steel back out of the way.  It was dark in the hole and he was afraid that the trapped man was under something else or in another spot in the elevator.  He grabbed his flashlight and shone it into the opening.  A smile crossed his face when he saw the back of the coat he had forced through to the young man and he reached down to let him know it was alright.

 

Blair was sliding slowly toward sleep.  He was warm and the meditation had helped him to relax.  The noise from the torch had stopped … and he just wanted to rest.

 

“Mr. Sandburg?” the fireman said as he reached into the hole and took hold of the thick, heavy coat.  He remembered the young man’s first name, “Blair?”

 

Startled out of the light doze he had fallen into, Blair jerked.  A hand took hold of his shoulder and he flinched away from it.

 

“Easy.  Take it easy,” the fireman soothed.  “I’m trying to get you out of here.”

 

Tipping his face up, Blair squinted into the light shining down on him.  His brain engaged suddenly and he raised his hands and started to stand up.

 

It was awkward, putting the harness on in the confined space, but Blair did it.  The fireman, who introduced himself as Mike Fox, steadied him so that he didn’t hit the edges of the hole in the metal.  It was disorienting, being lifted in the dark that way, but he kept looking up toward the light in the opening above him.

 

Jim edged closer as they winched Blair up from the lower level.  He could see in between the firemen and knew the moment that his guide’s feet touched the floor.  He couldn’t get close because of the cluster of men and equipment, but he heard Blair’s voice, still soft and raspy, when he told them he was alright.

 

“What about Bonnie?” Blair asked while they were removing his harness.  He heard them say that they were bringing Mike up and that they had to move out of the way.

 

“We’ll get her next,” someone assured him, patting him on the shoulder gently.

 

The paramedic took hold of Blair’s arm and began coaxing him toward the stretcher they had set up under a bright light.  But Blair’s eyes scanned the figures in the darkness until he found the person he most wanted to see.

 

“Jim,” Blair whispered, pulling away from the gently restraining hand.  Ellison came toward him and Blair fell into his arms.  “I want to get out of here,” he said as he tried to push the taller man toward the doors.  “Please … get me out of here.”

 

Tucking his face into the dark mass of curls, Jim clung to Blair.  He felt Blair’s hands clenching in the material of his shirt as the younger man shuddered.

 

“We need to transport him to the hospital,” the paramedic said, gently intruding on the reunion of the friends.  “He needs to be checked out.”

 

“No, no hospital.  Just take me home,” Blair murmured.

 

“You need to get checked out,” Jim said softly, “Then you can go home.”

 

It took some coaxing, but Jim got Blair to let the paramedics look at him.  They didn’t remove the bandana because it had dried on and they didn’t want to cause the wound to bleed again.  When the medic commented on the bruise on his left arm, Blair looked down at it as if he hadn’t seen it before.

 

Jim could see that Blair’s pupils were unequal and sluggish and knew his roommate had a concussion.  The head wound had bled and his hair was matted to it beneath the tightly tied bandana.  When the medic asked to examine Blair’s ankle, he looked up at Jim and sighed.

 

“What is it, Chief?” Jim asked.

 

“I keep losing shoes around you,” Blair complained.

 

“I’ll get you another pair,” Jim soothed.

 

They wouldn’t let him ride with Blair to the hospital so Jim hurried into the garage to get his truck.  By the time he reached the hospital, Blair had already been taken to an exam room.  A nurse cut him off before he could get to his friend and she told him he would have to stay in the waiting room.  Since Blair was conscious and semi-coherent, Jim reluctantly returned to the other room.

 

After his head injury was cleaned and bandaged, Blair was taken for a long session in x-ray.  His head hurt and he was hungry and he was getting cranky.  He was cold and the thin little sheet they draped over him wasn’t doing anything to warm him.  The nurse assured him that the doctor would be along to stitch up his head in a few minutes and she suggested that he try to close his eyes and rest.  As soon as he was alone, Blair began to talk softly.

 

“Jim, if you’re out there, I’d really like some company, man.  And if you pass a linen cart, could you grab a couple of blankets?  I’m freezing my assets off in here.”

 

Sitting in the waiting room, Jim suddenly began to chuckle.  Simon, who had arrived five minutes earlier, looked at him curiously.

 

“He’s awake and summoning me to his side,” Jim said as he came to his feet.  The corridor was surprisingly empty and no one questioned him as he strode toward Blair’s room.  He did pass the linen cart and grabbed three of the thin, insulated blankets.

 

Blair had turned on his side and was shivering when the door opened and Jim came in.  “Oh, man, am I glad to see you,” he said, “Spread them over me, quick!”

 

“And here I thought it was me you wanted, you only want me for my blankets,” Jim quipped as he strode across the room and piled the blankets on the bed next to his friend.

 

“Have you seen how they have me dressed?  It’s like the Arctic Circle in here,” Blair protested as he fumbled with the blankets.  Jim rescued him by shaking the folds out of them one by one and draping them over him.  “Ahh, much better,” Blair sighed as the weight of the blankets settled over him.

 

“What have they said so far?” Jim asked.

 

“Like you haven’t been listening,” Blair replied drowsily.

 

“I only heard the nurse saying that she’s sending someone in to stitch your head,” Jim said as he watched his guide relax.

 

“Wake me when he gets here then,” Blair murmured.

 

“Okay, I will,” Jim agreed as he turned around to look for something to sit on.

 

“And don’t leave me here.  I’m not staying,” Blair added.

 

Jim stayed until the plastic surgeon came to stitch up the small laceration on Blair’s forehead.  He asked Jim to step out while he worked and since Blair didn’t protest, Jim went for a cup of coffee and to let Simon know what was going on.

 

Some forty-five minutes later, the doctor came out to get Jim.  It seemed that the he thought Blair should stay the rest of the night for observation and Blair wanted to go home.  The doctor wanted Jim to talk sense to his friend and convince him to stay.

 

“I promised him I would take him home, Doc.  Sorry,” Jim explained.  “I was a medic in the army, I know what signs to watch out for and he’ll rest more comfortably at home.”

 

The doctor, seeing that he was outgunned as it were, acquiesced and told the nurse to draw up Blair’s discharge papers.  Jim went to Blair’s room and helped his slightly drugged roommate with his clothes.  Simon brought Blair’s other shoe, which the firemen had ‘rescued’ for him, so he had something to wear home.

 

Once Blair was loaded into the truck, Jim was able to relax.  He sat behind the wheel and sighed heavily.

 

“It’s too late,” Blair said softly.

 

“Too late for what?” Jim asked, turning to look at his roommate in alarm.

 

“The Italian place closed an hour ago,” he murmured.

 

Looking at his watch, Jim realized that it was almost midnight.  “How about if I make you some grilled cheese when we get home,” he offered, knowing that it was comfort food for both of them.

 

Smothering a yawn, Blair nodded, “Sounds good to me.”

 

Jim started the engine and, after a minute for it to warm up, turned on the heater and pointed the vents toward Blair, who was huddled down in Jim’s coat.  Easing out onto the street, Jim drove back to the loft.

 

Blair was sound asleep by the time they got home, a combination of exhaustion and the pain pill the doctor had given him at the hospital to blunt his headache.  It was cozily warm in the truck and Jim’s coat was surprisingly comfortable.

 

“Come on, Sandburg.  I’m not carrying you,” Jim warned as he carefully wakened his friend.  He reached around and unlocked the seatbelt, making sure it retracted so it was out of the way.  Blair awoke on half a snore, looking around blearily before making an uncoordinated effort to get out of the truck.  Jim caught hold of him and steadied him until he was sure the younger man could walk on his own.

 

Once in the foyer, Jim automatically punched the call button for the elevator and, unexpectedly, the doors opened immediately.  Blair looked at the car, even smaller than the one he had been trapped in at the PD, and shuddered.

 

“That’s alright, Jim, I’ll just … um, take the stairs,” Blair said.

 

“Sorry, I wasn’t thinking,” Jim replied, turning away from the elevator.  Blair was already making his way up the steps and Jim moved up behind him, reaching out to steady him so he didn’t fall.

 

Blair’s head was throbbing by the time he reached the door to the loft and he was starting to feel queasy.  He willed his stomach to settle down because he knew Jim would take him back to the hospital if he started throwing up.  Jim opened the door and Blair shrugged out of Ellison’s coat.  He shuffled across the living room, intending to grab the thick comforter from his bed to wrap up in while Jim fixed them something to eat.  When he got to the doorway, he stopped.  The walls of his room seemed unbearably close and he couldn’t make himself step in, not even to get the much-needed blanket.

 

Jim was pulling cheese and butter out of the refrigerator while the skillet heated when he heard Blair’s heartbeat suddenly skyrocket.  Pausing only to turn the off the stove, he hurried over to the doorway.

 

“What’s wrong?” Jim asked, reaching past Blair to turn on the light.  Instead of moving on into the room, his guide pressed back against him, shaking.  “Blair?” he questioned, putting his hands on the younger man’s upper arms in case he collapsed.  Blair continued to push against him until Jim took a step back.

 

“I just … I can’t … I need to sit down,” Blair said, veering away from Jim and lurching toward the nearest couch.  He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees as he tried to regain control of his breathing.

 

Jim stepped into Blair’s room and grabbed the comforter, rushing to wrap it around his guide.  He sat down next to Blair, running his hand back and forth across his shoulders and waiting for him to respond.

 

“I’m sorry,” Blair mumbled, “I just couldn’t go in there.  The walls … they were, like, closing in on me for a minute.”

 

“It’s alright.  You can sleep out here tonight.  In fact, why don’t you lie down and I’ll bring you your grilled cheese when it’s ready,” Jim offered.  “And I’ll make you some tea.  Ginger should help settle your stomach.”

 

“I don’t even want to know how you know about my stomach, man.”

 

“I’ve had a concussion before,” Jim reminded him as he moved toward the kitchen.

 

Ten minutes later, Jim set the plate and steaming mug of tea on the coffee table as he squatted down in front of the couch to wake Blair.  He hated to do it but he knew that Sandburg hadn’t eaten anything since lunch and he needed something in his stomach to take the other pain pill the doctor suggested he have to help him rest.

 

“Blair?  Come on, Chief, wake up and eat something,” Jim urged softly.

 

“Five more minutes,” Blair mumbled.

 

“Come on, sit up and eat and you can go right back to sleep,” Jim said a little louder.  He turned on the TV and switched it to ESPN so there was something with action for them to watch.  He got Blair to sit up and placed the plate with a grilled cheese sandwich in his lap before placing a small capsule in his hand.

 

“What’s this?” Blair asked.

 

“Something for the pain.  Just take it and eat your sandwich.”

 

To Jim’s relief, Blair popped the capsule into his mouth and washed it down with a gulp of the warm tea.  He picked up one of the quarters of grilled cheese and took a bite, chewing it thoroughly before he swallowed.

 

“This is good,” Blair said.  “What time is it, anyway?”

 

“Just after one,” Jim replied, knowing that the few minutes of deep sleep had left his roommate confused.

 

“Oh,” Blair said.  He finished the first piece of the sandwich and took another swallow of the ginger tea.  His head was still throbbing in time with his heartbeat but he was also feeling the effect of the pain medication.

 

In all, Blair finished three-fourths of the sandwich and almost all of the tea before he dropped off to sleep, still sitting up with the plate in his lap.  Jim eased him into lying down after removing the plate and carefully brushing the crumbs off of the comforter.  He tucked the blanket in under the cushions to remind Blair that he was not on the futon, he didn’t want him to roll over and fall off the couch.  After he finished rinsing the dishes, the weary Sentinel climbed the stairs to his room and crawled into bed, setting the alarm to wake him in a couple of hours so he could check on Blair.

 

He didn’t get a chance to sleep until the alarm went off.  Jim tumbled out of bed and almost fell down the steps in his haste to get to Blair, who was struggling in the twisted comforter, crying out in distress.  Jim took hold of him, rolling him carefully to his back and yanking the comforter back out of the way.

 

 _It had all been his overactive imagination.  He had died in the elevator and they buried him!  Blair fought against the top of the casket, desperate to escape.  It was too close, too confining, and he couldn’t breathe!_

“Blair, you’re alright,” Jim soothed, “I need you to wake up for me, Chief.  Sandburg!  Wake up!”  He raised his voice as he pulled the younger man into a sitting position.

 

Blair cried out and the sound of his own voice woke him.  The dream dissolved around him, the pale lining of the casket resolving itself into the back of the couch.  He looked around the room as his heartbeat slowed to something resembling normal.  He was surprised to find Jim sitting on the edge of the couch holding onto his arms and he leaned back slowly until Ellison let go.

 

“You were having a nightmare,” Jim explained.

 

“I’m sorry I woke you,” Blair replied.

 

“That’s alright, I was going to have to come down in a little while to check on you, anyway.  Do you know where you are?”

 

“852 Prospect, it’s Thursday morning or Wednesday night and you’re Jim Ellison,” Blair replied tiredly.  “Can I go back to sleep now?” he said around a massive yawn.

 

A smile curled Jim’s lips as he stood up and tugged the comforter the rest of the way out from under the couch cushions.  “Night, Chief,” he said.

 

***

 

Jim tried to keep quiet in the morning when he got up, hoping that Blair would sleep for a few more hours.  He slipped out of the apartment and down the block to get a cup of coffee and some donuts and pastries for his breakfast, saving the last two eggs in the carton for Blair when he felt like eating.  He was sitting at the table, reading the paper, when the phone rang.  Jim leapt up, trying to catch it before it woke Blair.

 

“Ellison,” he greeted softly.

 

“Jim, Simon.  I hope I didn’t wake you,” Banks said.

 

“No, but Blair is still asleep,” Jim replied, turning around to look toward the couch and seeing his roommate sitting up and raking his hair back from his face.

 

“No, he’s not,” Blair murmured grouchily.  He flung the comforter out of the way and swung his feet around, setting them on the floor.  Immediately, his right ankle, the one he had pulled out from under the beam and pulled off his shoe, began to throb.  His head took up the counterpoint and his bladder chimed in with an urgent need for relief.  He rose slowly and shuffled toward the bathroom with his eyes mostly closed.  He was standing over the commode when he finally opened his eyes and looked around.  All at once, the room seemed to have been emptied of air and he gasped.

 

“I’m sorry, Jim.  Tell Sandburg that I hope he’s feeling better.  I just wanted to let you know that the PD has been declared unsafe until a structural engineer gets in to determine what repairs need to be made.  In the interim, Major Crimes, Vice and Narcotics have been assigned space in the office building across the street,” Simon explained.

 

“The one they just finished rebuilding after Kincaid blew it up?” Jim asked.

 

“That’s the one.  They’ve got technicians moving phone lines and getting everything set up for us.  We should be back up and running by Monday.  We’re working out of a trailer this weekend, just the regular patrol cars-” Simon continued.

 

Jim’s hearing suddenly telescoped and he was almost staggered by the sudden increase in Blair’s heartbeat and the struggling breaths, “I gotta go, Simon.  I’ll call you back.”  He hung up and raced to the bathroom door.  “Sandburg!  Are you alright in there?” he shouted.  When he didn’t get any response, he opened the door.  Blair was leaning against the towel rod in the middle of a full-on panic attack.  Jim grabbed him by the arm and dragged him out of the small room, across the living room and out onto the patio.  There was a sudden gust of cold air, followed by the sound of his guide taking a deep, startled breath.

 

“What in the?” Blair gasped, “Jim?  It’s cold out here, man!”

 

Opening the door, Jim pushed Blair ahead of him and down onto the couch, where he covered him with the comforter again.  “You weren’t breathing,” he explained.  Time had brought out the bruising on Blair’s forehead and his right eye was slightly swollen.

 

“I don’t remember,” Blair said.  “I woke up and you were on the phone.”

 

“Simon called, he said that we have the rest of the weekend off.  They’re moving us across the street to that new building until some engineer can assess the damage to the PD.  He said to tell you he hopes you’re feeling better,” Jim supplied.

 

“Oh, man, this sucks!  Am I going to have a panic attack every time I use the john?  That should make things really interesting,” Blair complained.  “I can’t sleep in my room and I can’t go in the bathroom.  I’m going to be pretty ripe in a day or two.”

 

Jim tried to quash the smile that spread across his face at Blair’s words, the situation wasn’t at all funny but if personal hygiene was all he could find to complain about, they would suffer through.  He laid a hand on Blair’s shoulder and gave it a squeeze.

 

“You’ll be alright,” Jim said confidently.  “It hasn’t even been a full day since you were rescued.  How about some breakfast?  You didn’t eat much last night.”

 

“Not right now, Jim.  My stomach’s still a little unsettled.”

 

“Would you like some more ginger tea?” Jim offered.

 

“Yeah, that would be great,” Blair agreed.  When Jim got up and went into the kitchen, Blair called after him, “I can make it.”

 

“It’s alright, I’ve got it.  You just sit there and warm up.  How’s the head feeling?”

 

“Hurts, along with my arm and my ankle,” Blair grouched.  When he realized how that sounded, he added, “I’m sorry.  I don’t mean to take it out on you.”

 

Jim brought the steaming mug of tea and some crackers out and put them on the coffee table.  He also set the bottle of pain pills on the table.  He doubted Blair would take them and he decided that he wasn’t going to harp at him because that would only make him resist them more strenuously.  Returning to his paper and now-cold coffee, Jim watched as his roommate blew on the tea and took a sip.  A few minutes later, Ellison smiled as Blair nibbled on one of the crackers.

 

It was a quiet morning in the loft.  Blair finished the tea and several of the crackers before going back to sleep.  Jim cleaned up the dishes, finished the paper and wrote out some bills in between running downstairs with the laundry.  He called Simon back and found out that he was expected to clean out his desk and transfer his things to their new accommodations.  Jim agreed that he would come later in the afternoon, after Blair woke up and was doing better.

 

When Blair awoke, Jim was sitting on the other couch, folding the load of towels he had brought up from the dryer.  Over the smell of fabric softener, Blair also detected the odor of chicken soup.  His stomach growled fiercely, protesting its emptiness.

 

“Sounds like you need to eat,” Jim observed.

 

“Yeah, and I’ve got to go to the bathroom again,” Blair replied.

 

Not knowing what else to say, Jim offered, “Good luck.  Remember to breathe.”

 

“Thanks,” Blair countered sarcastically.  He slowly crossed the living room, noticing that Jim had also picked up fresh bread from the bakery down the block.  His mouth watered and his stomach rumbled but he had other business to attend to first.

 

A rare beam of sunlight shone in the bathroom window, brightening the small room.  Blair felt his heart clench and he took a slow, deep breath.  “I can do this,” he whispered.  Looking down at his feet, he forced himself to take a step forward.  His hand went to the wall and assured him that it wasn’t moving.  “I can do this,” he repeated determinedly.

 

In the living room, Jim forced himself to continue folding the laundry, to give Blair a chance to conquer his fear on his own.  He quickly pulled his hearing back when he realized that his roommate was talking to him.

 

“You better not be listening, man.  This is hard enough without an audience,” Blair said as he took care of his business.  In spite of the way his heart was beating like a trip-hammer, he managed to use the toilet and wash his hands.  He would have liked to brush his teeth but he didn’t think he could stay in there that long.

 

When Blair came out of the bathroom, he headed for the kitchen and lifted the lid off of the crock pot Jim had put the soup in to keep it warm.  “Ohh, smells so good,” he said after a deeply indrawn breath.  He took up the ladle and stirred it, seeing chunks of carrots, potatoes and celery along with the chicken and noodles.

 

“You want a bowl or are you just going to eat it out of the pot?” Jim asked, offering him a bowl.

 

They ate lunch, polishing off almost half of the soup and a third of the loaf of bread.  Jim explained that he had to go down to the PD and told Blair that he could stay home if he wasn’t feeling up to it.

 

“Yeah, I think I’ll stay here,” Blair said.  He knew his hair was a tangled mess and he hadn’t showered or shaved.

 

“You know, you could run some water in the sink and wash up while I’m gone,” Jim suggested.  “I’ll get you some clean clothes and your shaving stuff.”

 

“That sounds like a good idea.  Keeps me from offending your senses,” Blair agreed.

 

After Jim gathered his things and left for the PD, Blair ran the sink full of water and tossed in a freshly-laundered washcloth.  He spread a towel on the floor to catch any drips, peeled off his shirt and wrinkled his nose at the odor.

 

“Man!  It’s a wonder he could stand to sit next to me,” he said, chuckling at his own words.

 

When Jim returned home a couple of hours later, Blair was sitting on the floor, surrounded by candles as he meditated.  A quick glance into the kitchen showed that he had thoroughly cleaned up after his ‘sink-bath.’  Blair’s shaving kit, toothbrush and toothpaste were all stacked neatly on the end of the counter.

 

“Hey, Jim,” Blair greeted, rising carefully from the floor.

 

“Hey, you look better,” Jim replied.  Blair had removed the thick gauze pad and replaced it with a couple of smaller Band-Aids, trimming the sticky parts so they didn’t adhere to his hair.

 

“Yeah, I washed my hair, too.  I tried not to get the stitches wet … too wet,” he amended.

 

Jim crossed to stand in front of his roommate and gently touched the bruised skin around the bandages.  He nodded and patted Blair’s shoulder.  “Looks good,” he said.

 

“How’d it go?  At the station,” Blair asked.

 

“You know, I’ve never been in that building when it was so empty and quiet.  It was really eerie, Chief,” Jim explained.  “Most of the other guys had already cleaned out their desks so I had the whole place to myself.  They’re moving some of the desks into the other building.  The engineer said that they can repair the elevator shaft wall so that it will be able to pass inspection but it’s going to take a couple of months.  The patrol squads are going to move to the old armory building over on Carver.”

 

“Have you heard … when they’re having the … funeral for Bonnie?” Blair asked.

 

“Day after tomorrow.  They wanted to give everyone time to get settled and for her family to get here from out of state.”

 

“Do you think they would mind if I … was there?”

 

“Her husband invited everyone from the station, Blair.”

 

“But do you think it’ll be alright if I show up?”

 

Jim was puzzled by Blair’s hesitance until it dawned on him, “No one blames you for what happened to Bonnie.  There wasn’t anything you could have done, Chief.”

 

“But it’s my fault.  I … I pushed her down.”

 

“It wasn’t your fault,” Jim said, reaching out to gather the younger man into his arms.  “It wasn’t your fault,” he repeated.

 

They made it through Friday.  Blair had a class to teach and office hours so Jim went to the ‘office’ to see if he could help set things up.  Rhonda and Simon were there, along with a couple of uniforms.  The building had been rebuilt after Kincaid blew it up trying to emancipate two of his Sunrise Patriots from jail.  The first floor was already occupied by a couple of businesses and a sandwich shop.  The second and third floors were ‘white boxes,’ unfinished spaces ready to be painted or decorated to the customer’s liking.  Major Crimes was in suite 202.  Simon had already claimed his corner near the windows.  His space was outlined with modular walls.  There was no door to knock on, or more importantly, to slam.  Since he was so late in cleaning out his desk, Jim was farthest from the windows, just inside the door and across from Rhonda’s desk, which suited him just fine.  Rhonda, bless her, had gotten him a larger desk and another chair so that Blair would have a space when he was there.

 

Blair took a few deep, cleansing breaths before he entered Hargrove Hall.  He was feeling vaguely wired from the lack of restful sleep and the amount of coffee he had consumed that morning.  ‘Oh well,’ he thought, ‘I’ve gotten by on less sleep.’

 

Once inside of the lecture hall, Blair settled into his old routine.  He soon had the students deeply engrossed in the cultural differences between the natives of Peru and those neighboring Ecuador.

 

After class, Blair had office hours.  He was fine in the hall, in spite of the crowded conditions, but the moment he stepped foot into the artifact storage room that he used for an office, he started to tremble.  Since two of his students had followed him from the lecture hall, he had to make himself go into the room and sit behind the desk.

 

As soon as the last student was gone, Blair lit out of his office like the building was on fire.  The tight, achy feeling in his chest loosened as soon as he stepped out onto the sidewalk and took a few deep breaths of the cool, damp air.

 

***

 

The day of the funeral, Blair was a wreck.  He hadn’t slept except in snatches all night and he was still being eaten up by guilt.  His dreams were unusually vivid and frightening.  He dreamed that Bonnie sat up in her casket and demanded to know why he had killed her.  In another, he dreamed that they were back in the elevator and Bonnie grabbed hold of him, tearing into his flesh so that he bled to death like her.  He also dreamed that, while visiting her grave to lay flowers, that she reached up and grabbed him by the hand.  After that one, when he tumbled off the couch in a cold, drenching sweat, he had given up on trying to sleep.

 

At the church service, Blair pressed himself against the back wall, adamantly refusing to walk down to the front where the casket sat amidst a riot of floral arrangements.  Jim didn’t pressure him, only making him promise not to leave while he made his way up to extend their condolences to the family.

 

Blair followed Jim with his eyes as he walked the long, narrow aisle that led to the front of the church.  After a few minutes, his ankle began to ache, so he inched forward and slid into the last pew.  He looked down at the small memorial card that had been handed to him at the door and began to read the details of a life cut short.  He couldn’t hear anything over the pounding of his heart, so the touch on his shoulder startled him and he gasped, barely managing to swallow the scream that leapt into his throat.

 

“This is Blair,” Jim was saying to the young, handsome man with red, swollen eyes.  When he came to his feet, Jim introduced the man, “This is Bonnie’s husband, Ronald.”

 

“I’m so sorry for your loss,” Blair said, barely able to look the man in the face.

 

“I wanted to thank you … for being there for Bonnie.  I’m glad to know that she wasn’t alone at the end,” Mr. Henderson said, extending his hand for Blair to shake.  When Blair’s fingers curled around his hand, Ronald pulled him closer and wrapped his other arm around him.

 

They stood there like that for several moments before each let go of the other.  Both dashed fresh tears from their eyes before Mr. Henderson moved away to greet some of the others who had come to the service.

 

***

 

Gradually, as the days passed, Blair let go of the guilt.  He also got over having panic attacks in the bathroom, being heartily tired of bathing in the kitchen sink.  Later, he was able to move off of the couch and back into his room, after falling off into the floor one night.  Jim was surprised to find him back in his room, snug as a bug in a rug.

 

There were some uncomfortable moments when he accompanied Jim to the ‘office’ the first few times, but he wouldn’t allow his Sentinel to go it alone so he squashed his fears.

 

He drew the line, however, at elevators.  Fortunately for him, most of the places they went were on the first few floors of the buildings.  Blair maintained that the exercise was good for him and that the ladies appreciated the way he looked in his tight jeans.

 

***

 

Two and a half months later, the repairs to the PD were finished and Jim was told to clear his desk in preparation for the move.  Blair was there, since he didn’t have any classes to take or teach, and he helped organize the file folders so that nothing got lost in transit.  When they finished packing up the last box, which was mostly filled with loose pens and stacks of Post-it notes, they were ready to venture across the street.  Blair was his usual, exuberant self, balancing a couple of boxes that Rhonda had asked him to take for her.  They waited at the curb for a break in traffic and Jim looked up at the building, remembering the sick feeling he’d had when he realized that Blair was trapped in the elevator.

 

They crossed the lobby, which had also been redone in an effort to make it safer and more secure, and arrived in front of the bank of elevators.  Blair stopped suddenly, as a cold shiver raced up his back.

 

“It’s a long way up to the seventh floor,” Jim commented casually.  The doors opened and he waited to see what his partner was going to do.

 

“You go ahead, Jim.  I’ll be up in a little while,” Blair said, staring at the elevator car like it was the gates of hell.

 

“You sure?” Jim asked.

 

“Yeah, yeah, it’s good.  I’ll be right up,” Blair replied.

 

Jim felt badly about taking the elevator and leaving Blair to hoof it up to the seventh floor but he sincerely hoped that a couple of times up and down all those steps would convince him to give the elevator another try.

 

By the time he rounded the landing on the fifth floor, Blair was beginning to question the wisdom of taking the stairs.  The stairwell wasn’t all that big and his newly-toned legs were twitching from the strain.  The boxes, which hadn’t been all that heavy when Rhonda gave them to him, were starting to feel like they were full of bricks.  He paused on the next landing and wiped his sweaty forehead on his sleeve before continuing.

 

In the bullpen, Jim was slowly unpacking the box, stowing things in the empty drawers.  Rafe and Brown were there, pawing through their boxes, which looked like they had just dumped things into rather than putting them in any kind of order.  Simon came out of his office, having finally finished putting the last of his knick-knacks on his newly-dusted shelves.  He looked around the bullpen and frowned.

 

“Where’s your sidekick?” he asked of Jim.

 

“He’ll be here in a few minutes.  He’s … ah, taking the stairs.”

 

Just then, Blair staggered into the bullpen and dropped into the first empty chair he came to.  The boxes slid from his hands and the top one fell over.  A small box tumbled out and opened, spilling brightly colored paperclips across the floor.

 

Simon’s phone began to ring and he hurried to answer it as Blair went to his knees and began gathering up the colorful bits of metal.  Banks was back in the bullpen a couple of minutes later.

 

“Ellison, we just got a report that Ted Nichols has checked into the Fairway Hotel.  I dispatched units to provide backup.  Get over there and pick him up,” the Captain ordered.

 

Nichols was wanted in connection with the deaths of his in-laws and the disappearance of his wife and daughter.  Since Jim caught the case originally, it was his place to bring the man in for questioning.

 

Blair quickly scooped the last of the paperclips up with two Post-it notes and dumped them into the little cardboard box.  He carefully righted the box that tipped over and took a rubber band to keep the paperclip box closed before setting it on top.  He looked up and realized that Jim was leaving without him.

 

“Jim?” he called, rushing to the hallway just as the elevator doors opened.

 

“Are you coming?” Jim asked, sticking his arm out to hold the car.

 

“I’ll be right down,” Blair answered, moving toward the stairwell door.

 

“Hurry up!” Jim called back as he stepped in and punched the button for the basement.

 

Blair’s feet beat a rapid rhythm as he hurried down the steps.  He jumped the last three and rounded the landing.  Looking down, he didn’t see anyone else on the stairs, so he parked his hip on the railing and slid down.  The fifth time he did that, he lost his balance at the end and crashed into the wall.  He was desperate that Jim not leave without him, so he kept going in spite of his aching shoulder.

 

Jim waited impatiently at the door to the parking garage.  He could hear the rapid beat of Blair’s shoes on the steps and knew that he was almost there.  Seconds later, the observer burst out of the stairwell and jogged toward him.

 

They were several blocks away from the station before Jim noticed Blair rubbing his shoulder.  “What happened?” he asked, “To your shoulder.”

 

“I ran into the wall on the landing.  I’m good,” Blair replied, hastily removing his hand from his shoulder and giving it an experimental roll.

 

The arrest went smoothly and Nichols was handcuffed in the back of a squad car on his way back to the station with a minimum of fuss.  Jim offered to stop at a drive-thru for lunch and Blair suggested the Punjab place they had passed on the way to the hotel.

 

When they got to the station, Blair headed for the stairs with the bags of food.

 

“Wait up, Sandburg!  I want to eat my lunch while it’s hot,” Jim said, taking the bags and looking in to see which one was which.  “I can’t tell so I’ll leave yours on your desk,” he added, moving toward the elevator.

 

Blair watched as Jim disappeared into the elevator and he looked at the stairway door again.  It was pretty deserted in the hall, so he walked over and pressed the button to call the elevator.  He would try to get on; he just hoped that Jim was listening for him.

 

The doors opened and he looked into the small car.  It wasn’t the one he and Bonnie had been trapped in but that didn’t matter, he couldn’t make himself step inside.  Sighing and silently castigating himself for cowardice, he stepped back and turned to the stairwell.

 

Jim dropped the bags on the desk and went to get a bottle of water out of the break room.  When he came back, H looked up and noticed that he was alone.

 

“Where’s Hairboy?” he asked.

 

“Stairs,” Jim replied flatly.

 

“He’s going to wear himself out.  Has he talked to anybody about his fears?”

 

“No, he says he can handle it.  He’s not having panic attacks in his room or the bathroom anymore, so it’s just a matter of time,” Jim replied, lifting his Styrofoam container out of the bag and setting it on top of the flattened bag so as not to get anything on the new blotter.

 

***

 

Weeks passed and Blair was still unable to set foot in the elevator at the station.  On the up side, he was getting an excellent cardio workout everyday.  He was able to keep up with Jim when they jogged in the park and when they chased the bad guys in the streets.

 

The call came in as they were on their way home.  There was a shooting on the 17th floor of the Merchant Building.  Jim was closest and he radioed that he would take the call.  He pulled right up on the sidewalk in front of the building and leapt from the truck.

 

“Stay in the truck, Chief,” Jim called over his shoulder, pulling on his CPD windbreaker.

 

Blair shifted anxiously as he waited for the backup cars to arrive.  He knew that he should have gone with Jim, in case he needed to use his senses, but the detective couldn’t wait for him to climb the stairs.  When the police cars arrived, he got out and went to tell them that Jim had gone up alone.

 

***

 

Coming out of the elevator on the 16th floor, Jim hesitantly cast out his hearing to the floor above him.  He could hear a woman sobbing and other frightened voices pleading not to be harmed.  He had a pretty good idea of the layout of the floor and he ducked into the stairwell.  When he reached the door, he paused, listening again to locate the gunman.

 

“Roslyn!” the man bellowed.  “I know you’re up here!”  He kicked an office door open and waived his gun at the frightened occupants.  “Roslyn!”

 

Jim cracked the door open and peered out.  He clicked off the safety on his gun and took a deep, steadying breath.  He opened the door and stepped into the corridor.  A woman peeking out of the restroom gasped upon seeing him and he laid his index finger across his lips in the universal sign for ‘quiet’.

 

***

 

Blair paced anxiously as he listened to the radio communication between the cops in the building and the ones on the street.  He knew that the stairwell doors had been locked and the elevators disabled to keep the shooter trapped on the 17th floor.  They were evacuating the floors immediately above and below but not letting anyone leave the building in case he started shooting out of the windows.

 

Simon’s car rolled to a stop behind the police cars and he got out, striding over to the phalanx of vehicles where he could see officers conferring over a blueprint of the building.  He spotted the young observer and called out to him, “Sandburg!”

 

***

 

The gunman found the woman he was searching for.  Jim heard her screaming and begging as she was dragged from whatever hiding place she had found.  He heard the first blows fall as she was beaten.  After taking another breath, Jim launched himself out from behind the wall and shouted the required warning.

 

“Cascade Police!  Put down your weapon!” Jim announced. 

 

The gunman turned, shielding himself behind the battered and bloody body of a blonde woman.  He had the gun pressed against the side of her head.  He smiled, his shoulders heaving with every breath.  “You think you can shoot me before I pull this trigger?” he asked, clenching his hand more firmly in the woman’s hair and forcing a whimper to break from her throat.

 

“You don’t have to do this,” Jim said.

 

“She was going to take my kids away from me,” the man replied.

 

“But this isn’t the way to handle it.”

 

“I’ve already taken care of it.  Don’t you see?  I took care of the kids this morning-” the gunman explained, which caused the woman to cry out and claw desperately at his arm.  “I killed them and now I’m going to kill her.  If I can’t be with my family, no one can!” the man yelled.  At the same time, the woman wrenched free and drove her fist into his groin.  The man let go an enraged bellow and fired his gun.

 

The bullet punched into Jim’s thigh.  Pain threatened to overload his senses as he sank to his knees.  He saw the man taking aim again and fired, his sentinel vision following the bullet as it ripped through the gunman’s chest, sending a spray of blood onto the wall behind him.

 

***

 

A flurry of activity near the doors had Simon and Blair straining to get close enough to hear the radio calls.  They heard that the gunman was down and that the hostage had been released.  Before there was even time to rejoice, they heard the call they had been dreading … officer down.

 

Blair pulled free of Simon’s restraining grip and ran toward the building.  He ducked past the officers who would have stopped him.  He raced up the steps and pulled the door open.  The crowds in the lobby took that as a sign that they were free to go and people began racing out of the building.

 

He took the stairs two and three at a time.  Even as sweat blurred his vision, he kept on, desperate to get to his friend.  His lungs ached and a stitch in his side made it harder but he pressed on, not stopping until he reached the 17th floor.  He pulled the door open and staggered into the corridor.  Two officers, startled at his arrival, turned and reached for their weapons.

 

Blair held out trembling hands while he worked to get enough breath to explain.  He was saved by the fact that one of the officers recognized him.

 

“Come on, he’s this way,” the older officer said as he reached out to steady Blair and lead him to Jim’s side.

 

Sinking to his knees, Blair reached out for Ellison, who was lying on the floor, rocking from side to side as he clenched his hands around his injured leg.  It didn’t take but a few seconds for the guide to take control of the situation.  He shrugged off his flannel shirt and folded it into a pad, which he handed to the officer kneeling on the other side of Jim.

 

“Keep pressure on it,” Blair said, heedless of the fact that the cop probably knew what to do as well as he did.  “Jim, you gotta listen to me,” Blair whispered, leaning down close to the sentinel’s ear.  “Turn the dial, Jim.  Turn it down.  You can do it,” he urged.  He kept up until he felt some of the tension slide out of the taut muscle beneath his hand.

 

Jim unclenched his hands from around his thigh and reached out to grab Blair’s forearm.  He managed a weak smile for his friend.

 

The paramedics quickly set down their equipment and began to assess the injured officer.  They ripped the pants material away from the wound and pressed thick pads of gauze to the entry and exit wounds.  They took a set of vitals and prepared to transport their patient.

 

When they nudged Blair aside to lift him onto the stretcher, Jim’s control of the pain dial slipped and he gasped, groping for the hand that had been so rudely pulled away.

 

“Call for permission to push morphine,” the medic said to his partner.

 

“No!” Blair said anxiously.  “Jim has had some bad reactions to pain meds.”

 

“Is there anything we **can** give him?” the medic asked.

 

“Let’s just scoop and scoot,” the other medic suggested, “We’re barely five minutes out.”

 

They started an IV and put an oxygen mask in place before stacking their equipment on the stretcher and moving toward the elevators.  Jim reached out and caught hold of Blair’s arm.

 

The elevator doors opened and the medics pushed the stretcher into the car.  Blair only hesitated for an instant, his concern for Jim outweighing his fear.  Several seconds into the descent, however, he began to tremble.

 

“Stay with me, Chief,” Jim murmured, giving Sandburg’s arm a squeeze.

 

“I’m not going anywhere,” Blair said in between panted breaths.

 

The doors opened and Blair helped push the stretcher out.  Simon came toward them, with concern written in every line of his face.

 

“I’ll be alright, Simon,” Jim said as they rolled past him.

 

Blair followed the stretcher right into the ambulance, immediately reclaiming Jim’s hand.  He unobtrusively reminded Jim to keep the pain dial down and suggested that he turn down hearing as well.

 

By the time they reached the hospital, Jim was feeling like he had much better control over the pain but he asked the doctor to allow Sandburg to stay with him.  The doctor agreed as long as the grad student didn’t interfere or get in the way.

 

In the end, Jim had to undergo some minor surgery to repair the damage to his thigh muscle.  Blair was right there when he came around, softly whispering reminders about his dials and encouraging him to wake up so they could talk.

 

Two days later, Jim was discharged from the hospital.  Blair had remained at his side the entire time, grabbing catnaps in between the nurse’s checks.  Several times during the first 24 hours, Jim’s dials slipped, leaving him overloaded or in a panic over not being able to hear or see.  During those episodes, Blair was the only one who could reach him and calm him enough to help him regain control.

 

Rafe brought Jim’s truck to the hospital, fortunately, Jim had left the keys in the ignition, and Simon brought both of them a change of clothes.  Armed with crutches and a sack full of prescriptions for antibiotics and pain killers, Jim rode in the wheelchair with Blair pushing him.  When they arrived at the elevator, Blair hesitated.

 

“Uh, I don’t think I can … do this,” Blair stammered, shifting from foot to foot as he looked into the elevator car.  “I’ll just … uh, meet you downstairs, man.”

 

Jim reached up for the hand Blair placed on his shoulder and gave him an understanding smile.  It had been different when he was hurting so badly after he got shot but he couldn’t bring himself to press just for a quick ride down two floors.

 

Blair saw the understanding in Jim’s eyes and it only made him feel worse.  It was a sixty-second ride.  He could handle that, right?  He took another look into the car and at the perky young nurse’s aide who was watching both of them curiously.  Tamping down on his emotions, Blair grabbed the handles of the chair and gave it a push into the elevator car.

 

The aide pushed the button for the main floor and leaned back against the wall.  She smiled at the adorable man with the long hair, hoping to catch his eye but he seemed to be deliberately ignoring her.  ‘All the cute ones are either married or gay,’ she whispered sub-vocally.

 

If Jim hadn’t had his hearing turned up to monitor Blair, he would have missed the comment.  As it was, he did hear and was hard pressed to hold back on the laughter that wanted to break free.  The elevator stopped and there were a few seconds of leveling before the doors opened.  During that time, Blair’s heart rate began to skyrocket.

 

“Easy, Chief,” Jim soothed. 

 

The doors finally opened and Blair eagerly pushed Jim out into the corridor.  He kept hold of the wheelchair to hide the trembling of his hands.  They reached the outer doors and Blair quickly set the brakes on the chair.  He jogged across the lot and brought the truck around.  The aide helped Jim to his feet and handed him his crutches.  Blair opened the passenger door and steadied his friend as he pulled his tall frame up into the seat.

 

During the drive home, Jim formulated a plan.  He had to help Sandburg get over his fear of elevators.  He knew that, if he pressed, he could get Blair into the elevator with him, he just had to do it in such a way that it seemed like it was his idea and not Jim’s.

 

When Blair came around to help him out of the truck, Jim came up with an idea.  He leaned heavily into the younger man, pretending to be struggling for balance.  Blair went for it, pulling Jim’s arm over his shoulder and supporting him while carrying the spare crutch and bag from the hospital.  They got to the lobby and Jim stared up at the steps.

 

“No way, man, you’re taking the elevator and that’s all there is to it!” Blair announced.

 

The doors opened and the duo struggled through the narrow opening.  Jim immediately transferred his weight to the rails around the inside of the car and tried to push Blair away.  “You go ahead and open the door.  Just leave me the crutches,” he said as he reached for them.

 

“I’ve got them,” Blair countered.  “You don’t honestly think I’m letting you ride up all by yourself, do you?”  The doors closed and the car began to ascend with only the barest shudder.  Blair’s hands tightened on the crutches and he concentrated on keeping his breathing even.

 

“It’s okay, chief,” Jim said.  “You’ve done this a thousand times without anything bad happening.”

 

“I know.”  The doors opened just then and Blair moved to pull Jim’s arm across his shoulders again.

 

That was the beginning.  Over the course of Jim’s recovery, Blair managed to slowly conquer his fear of elevators.  His concern for Jim outweighed his discomfort.  The last obstacle was the elevator at the PD.  Blair managed the elevator at home and the one at the hospital where Jim went for his follow-up visits, but he had yet to enter the elevators at the PD. 

 

Finally, Jim was cleared for light duty.  Blair accompanied him into work, excited to finally get his bored, cranky roommate out of the apartment.  He was bouncing along beside Jim, regaling him with the details of his date the night before, when they reached the elevator.

 

“What happened after that?” Jim asked as he stepped into the elevator car.  Blair hesitated, eyeing the elevator with no small amount of trepidation.  “Come on, you can’t leave me hanging like this!  What happened next?”

 

Blair took a deep breath and stepped into the car just as the doors began to close.  “Well, Jim, I told you she had a body that was just made for-” he made a gesture and waggled his eyebrows, “you know.”

 

The elevator doors opened and Blair turned to see Rafe and Taggert standing in the hall.

 

“Hey Jim!  Welcome back!” Joel greeted happily.

 

“What am I, invisible or something?” Blair protested.

 

Joel reached out and ruffled the long, dark curls as he smiled, “Of course not.  We were just getting to you.  Good to see you, Sandburg!”

 

“Hey, I see you got over your fear of elevators!” Rafe added enthusiastically.

 

“Yeah, I guess I did,” Blair admitted.  And then he realized he really had.


End file.
